Daily Dose

A new Quicken Loans study reveals that appraiser home value opinions fell below homeowner estimates in April according to the company’s Home Price Perception Index (HPPI). Quicken Loans is the nation’s second largest retail mortgage lender.

Mortgage service regulations have not yet fully caught up with significant industry changes over the past five years, according to an Urban Wire blog post by the Urban Institute and author Karan Kaul.

Millennials, which are viewed by many analysts as the key to driving the housing market recovery, are actively seeking credit but largely being denied, according to a white paper released Tuesday by ID Analytics titled "Millennials: High Risk or Untapped Opportunity?"

Goldman Sachs has been ordered by arbitrators to pay approximately $100 million to National Australia Bank (NAB) for a "conflict of interest" regarding mortgage-backed securities sales in the run-up to the mortgage meltdown, according to media reports.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently issued a bulletin to help mortgage lenders evade illegal discrimination against applicants that include vouchers from the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Homeownership Program in their income when applying for a mortgage loan. This type of discrimination may violate federal fair lending protections.

According to the latest quarterly report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), home prices have increased in the majority of metro areas included for Q1 2015. A high demand for housing along with low inventory levels caused prices to go up significantly and areas that experienced double-digit price appreciation doubled compared to last quarter.

Nationwide Biweekly Administration, Inc., Loan Payment Administration LLC, and the company’s owner, Daniel Lipsky, are being sued by the Consumer Financial Bureau (CFPB) in federal district court. The CFPB claims that Nationwide falsely advertises the interest savings consumers will achieve through a biweekly mortgage payment program called the “Interest Minimizer” and deceives consumers about the price of the program.

The nearly two-month long court battle between the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and Nomura Holdings came to an end Monday when a federal judge found the bank liable for selling shoddy mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

The House Financial Services Committee has issued subpoenas to two federal government agencies and a branch of the central bank requesting information and documents regarding the government's "too big to fail" designation and the Obama Administration's debt ceiling, according to an announcement Monday on the Committee's website.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s (NBER’s) new working paper “Why Do Cities Matter? Local Growth and Aggregate Growth”, high-productivity markets are not the main contributors to economic growth due to limited housing affordability options.